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Music In The 50s

Pat Boone with his Pop-influenced remake of R&B hits “Ain’t that a shame” and Two hearts”, made him one of the most 50s influential music artists of all times. Rock and roll music style evolved and originated in American starting in the late 1940s to early 1950s. With the mixing of rhythm and blues, gospel music, country and western and pop, Alan Freed a disc jockey from Cleveland, Ohio, set the bar high and initiated in 1951 a new development of cultures and multi-racial audiences, by playing rhythm and blues to his new audience across the United States, launching the new found genre Rock and Roll.

Chuck Berry, Scotty Moore and Link Wray, followed in awe of Les Paul who introduced the electric guitar, with hit singles “The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise” and “How High the Moon”, creating the unique and newfound style of Rock and Roll sound and mix. Chuck Berry refined and developed the major elements of Rock and Roll music with introducing showmanship and guitar solos, which gave the lead to the vision of creating subgenres throughout the 1950’s music scene.

In the March of 1955 the premiere of the motion picture, “The Blackboard Jungle” with scripted music by Bill Hayley & The Comets “ We’re Gonna Rock Around The Clock” playing in the opening credits, set the teenage dance pattern and expression to another level. Never before had America witnessed set routines, with Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Fontane Sisters all using dance and rhythm to express the sound and structure to the Rock and Roll music scene.

In 1957 American Bandstand launched their television show featuring Rock and Roll performers, the national program hosted by Dick Clark. Elvis Presley skyrocketed the number of distinct subgenres, to be recorded in history with rockability, which as a combination of “hillbilly” country music and rock and roll. To which Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and the greatest success of this genre Elvis Presley the King of Rock and Roll.